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Volume IV · Page 519
| that then the invading forces, which had already executed hundreds of thousands of Poles, took reprisals against the Jews for the murder of Poles. If the operation was a "reprisal" one, as the report states, the Einsatz leaders would not have conducted investigations. If those executed were actually guilty of murder then the measure was not a reprisal but an orderly juridical procedure. Defense counsel argues that Einsatzkommando 5 really had nothing to do with this affair — |
" * * it was only to fire the shot, without having been consulted in any manner in the clarifying of the incidents which preceded the shootings." |
| That should have been all the more reason why
Schulz should not have proceeded with the execution. Schulz testified that
German soldiers had also been murdered in the Lemberg [Lvov] affair, but he
could not state how many. Hitler had ordered a reprisal measure and that seemed
to suffice. The defendant admitted that he conducted the execution of those
allotted to him without any report of their guilt. He was not even furnished
with a list of the executees. Following the Lemberg [Lvov] affair Einsatzkommando 5 marched on to Dubno and was successively at Zhitomir and Berdichev. On 10 August while at Zhitomir, Schulz was instructed by the Einsatzgruppen leader that Jewish women and children, as well as men, were to be executed. Schultz states that, in moral rebellion against the order, he left for Berlin on 24 August, arriving there 27 August. He spoke with Streckenbach and asked to be relieved from his post, and he was assured that this would be done. He returned to the Kommando on 15 September and turned over the unit to his successor on 25 September. Whether Schulz was actually relieved because of his protestations against the execution order cannot be conclusively known, since the other participants in that discussion, assuming that it took place, are not available. It is true that he did give up his Kommando in the latter part of September 1941. Whether this excluded him from responsibility for executions, however, remains to be seen. Report No. 88 states that "between 24 August and 30 August, Einsatzkommando 5 carried through 157 executions by shooting comprising Jews, officials, and saboteurs." Schulz used his trip to Berlin which embraces the six days indicated in the report, as an alibi for this shooting. But if the operation was planned before he left, his absence would not exonerate him. The man who places a bomb, lights the fuse, and rapidly takes himself to other regions is certainly absent when the explosion occurs, but his responsibility is no less because of that prudent nonpresence. |
